Stop NATO news: December 12, 2011

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Pakistani Forces Take Control Of Air Base As U.S. Troops Evicted

NATO Commander: No Guarantee New Pakistan Attacks Won’t Occur

Pakistan To Shoot Down U.S. Drones: Government Official

Two NATO Soldiers Killed In Eastern Afghanistan

Afghan War: U.S. Commander Defends Night Raids

Iran Summons Afghan Envoy Over NATO Drone Violation

Libya Marked For NATO Mediterranean Dialogue Membership

Libya: Deadly Internecine Fighting Intensifies

South Africa: NATO Attack On Libya Scar That Will Take Many Years To Heal For Africa

Arab League’s Capitulation

New Caucasus War: Azerbaijan Arms Spending Ratio Highest In CIS

Azerbaijan: U.S. Discusses Military Relations

Pakistan: U.S. Challenged As NATO Surrounds Iran

After Libya War: Barefaced New Scramble For Africa, Middle East

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Pakistani Forces Take Control Of Air Base As U.S. Troops Evicted

http://en.rian.ru/world/20111211/169711938.html

Russian Information Agency Novosti
December 11, 2011

Pakistan forces take control of Shamasi base as U.S. troops pull out

MOSCOW: Pakistan’s border guards took control of the Shamasi Airbase, previously used by U.S. troops for drone airstrikes in border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan, the News Tribe newspaper said.

“51 U.S. troops have vacated the airbase and their luggage has been shifted to Afghanistan and FC [Frontier Corps] took the control of base,” the paper said.

Islamabad gave the U.S. 15 days to leave the base on November 26 in response to a deadly NATO air strike on a checkpoint in the Mohmand tribal area in northwest Pakistan. The attack left at least 24 soldiers dead and 14 injured.

Shortly after the attack, Pakistan’s authorities also closed one of NATO’s key supply routes to Afghanistan, the so-called northern supply route through the Khyber Pass and Torham border post.

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NATO Commander: No Guarantee New Pakistan Attacks Won’t Occur

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2011\12\12\story_12-12-2011_pg1_4

Daily Times
December 12, 2011

Repeat of Mohmand-type mishap: Nothing can’t be guaranteed in war against terror: ISAF

DUBAI: ISAF Commander in Afghanistan General John R Allen has said that a repeat of Mohmand-type mishap can’t be guaranteed.

Talking to Khaleej Times, he said: “You simply can’t guarantee anything in war. The conditions are difficult at the border, let the investigation play out…” The paper had asked if there were any guarantees of such a mishap not happening again.

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The NATO attack has led to widespread rage in Pakistan. The government and military have responded with several measures, including recalling their liaison officers, implementing air defence systems on the border and disallowing US drone flights from the Shamsi airbase.

More importantly, NATO supply routes have been closed for the past two weeks…

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Pakistan To Shoot Down U.S. Drones: Government Official

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2011\12\12\story_12-12-2011_pg1_5

Independent News Pakistan
December 12, 2011

Pakistan decides to shoot down US drones?

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will shoot down any US drone that intrudes its airspace as per new directives, a senior Pakistani official said. According to the new Pakistani defence policy, “Any object entering into our airspace, including US drones, will be treated as hostile and be shot down,” a senior Pakistani military official told NBC News.

The policy change comes just weeks after a deadly NATO attack on Pakistani military checkpoints killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, prompting Pakistani officials to order all US personnel out of a remote airfield in Pakistan.

The government had told the United States to vacate the Shamsi airbase by December 11. The Frontier Corps took control of the Shamsi airbase on Saturday evening after most US military personnel left, sources said.

Chief of the Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani had issued multiple directives since the November 26 NATO attack, which included orders to shoot down US drones, senior military officials confirmed to NBC News.

It was unclear whether orders to fire upon incoming US drones were part of the initial orders. The Pakistani airbase had been used by US forces, including the CIA, to stage elements of a clandestine US counter-terrorism operation to attack militants linked to al Qaeda, the Taliban and Haqqani network, using unmanned drone aircraft armed with missiles. Since 2004, US drones have carried out more than 300 attacks inside Pakistan.

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Two NATO Soldiers Killed In Eastern Afghanistan

http://en.trend.az/regions/world/afghanistan/1967767.html

Deutsche Presse-Agentur
December 11, 2011

Two foreign soldiers killed in eastern Afghanistan

Two soldiers with the NATO-led international forces were killed Sunday in an improvised explosive device attack in eastern Afghanistan, the military coalition said, dpa reported.

The alliance did not specify the nationality of the deceased nor the exact location of the incident.

Mostly American soldiers are deployed in eastern part of the country that borders Pakistan and is now the focus of military efforts.

544 soldiers with NATO-led troops have been killed so far this year, according to an independent tally website iCasualties.org. The number is the second highest since the war started in 2001. Last year, 711 foreign soldiers were killed in Afghanistan.

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Afghan War: U.S. Commander Defends Night Raids

http://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/u-s-commander-defends-night-raids-in-afghanistan-1.163235

Stars and Stripes
December 11, 2011

U.S. commander defends night raids in Afghanistan

In an interview with The Associated Press late Saturday the leader of U.S. Special Operations Command, Adm. William McRaven, defended the unpopular night raids on homes in Afghanistan.

The Associated Press reports that the fallout over the raids has angered the country’s president and held up a security agreement with the United States.

“At the end of the end of the day I think you would find that night raids are very valuable when you are trying to get someone who is trying to hide,” McRaven told The Associated Press.

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Iran Summons Afghan Envoy Over NATO Drone Violation

http://www.pajhwok.com/en/2011/12/11/iran-summons-afghan-envoy-over-airspace-violation

Pajhwok Afghan News
December 11, 2011

Iran summons Afghan envoy over airspace violation
By Javed Hamim Kakar

KABUL: Iran summoned the Afghan ambassador and protest to him against pilotless US drone flights over its territory, officials said on Sunday.

Iran’s national TV channel announced last week that its air force had shot down a US RQ-170-type drone that entered its airspace from Afghanistan.

Subsequently, the Iranian foreign ministry summoned Afghan Ambassador Obaidullah Abid to protest the recent violation of its airspace by the US spy aircraft.

The state-controlled IRNA news agency reported an explanation was sought from the envoy on the issue. Iran also asked Afghanistan to prevent a recurrence of such incidents.

After the drone was shot down, the International Security Assistance Force said one of its aircraft had been missing during a mission in the western part of Afghanistan.

The unmanned aircraft lost contact with US troops, a statement from the NATO-led force said, adding the incident was being investigated.

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Libya Marked For NATO Mediterranean Dialogue Membership

http://tripolipost.com/articledetail.asp?c=1&i=7468

Tripoli Post
December 11, 2011

NATO Praises Success in Libya, Says It would Provide Assistance when Tripoli Asks for It

NATO foreign ministers meeting in Brussels
By Khadija Ali

At the NATO foreign ministerial meeting in Brussels held December 7-8, the alliance’s Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen expressed NATO’s success in Libya…

NATO countries and their allies also congratulated one another on the success of the Operation Unified Protector (OUP) mission in Libya…

NATO also expressed its interest in widening dialogue in the region as several NATO officials and spokespersons expressed interest in Libya joining the Mediterranean Dialogue.

NATO officials including Rasmussen himself emphasized that Libya must take the first step if the country would like assistance in its transition to democracy. Rasmussen offered help to Libya in areas such as defence and security.

…

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Libya: Deadly Internecine Fighting Intensifies

http://en.trend.az/regions/met/arabicr/1967758.html

Trend News Agency
December 11, 2011

Libyan army commander comes under second attack

Sergeant Abdel-Razik El-Shibahy said Sunday that revolutionary fighters from the western mountain town of Zintan opened fire Saturday evening on General Khalifa Hifter’s convoy in Tripoli, after failing to assassinate him hours before, Al Ahram reported.

El-Shibahy said one guard was killed and four injured in the second attack. No one was killed in the first assassination attempt.

The Libyan military says that the conflict began when a unit from the national army tried on Saturday to take control of the capital’s airport from the Zintan fighters. Libya’s nascent army is struggling to impose its authority over the militias that overthrew Muammar Gaddafi.

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http://en.trend.az/regions/met/arabicr/1967733.html

Trend News Agency/Deutsche Presse-Agentur
December 11, 2011

Calm in Tripoli after fighting kills three people

Calm returned to Tripoli on Sunday after clashes between the interim government’s military and armed fighters near the airport left three people dead, media reported.

Fighters from the Zintan area were scheduled to hand over the airport and several government buildings to the ruling National Transitional Council, dpa reported.

However, fighting began when the government’s army demanded an immediate handover and rejected the fighters’ suggestion that they should document the process for media purposes, the local Quryna news website reported.

Regional broadcaster Al Arabiya reported on its website that three people were killed in the clashes, which took place while the country’s first national reconciliation conference was being held in the capital.

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Disarming militant ex-fighters is one of the greatest challenges facing the interim government as it builds new security forces and tries to promote national reconciliation after months of bloody conflict.

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South Africa: NATO Attack On Libya Scar That Will Take Many Years To Heal For Africa

http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2011/12/11/zuma-visits-benin-after-criticising-nato-actions-in-libya

The Times (South Africa)/South African Press Association
December 11, 2011

Zuma visits Benin after criticising NATO actions in Libya

South African President Jacob Zuma visited the West African nation of Benin on Sunday, a day after criticising Western countries’ bombing campaign in Libya.

Zuma met Benin President Thomas Boni Yayi and the two countries signed off on a cooperation deal aimed at boosting flights between them, according to Benin Foreign Minister Nassirou Arifari Bako.

…

In Nigeria on Saturday, Zuma harshly criticised the NATO bombing campaign that helped lead to Moamer Kadhafi’s downfall in Libya.

“The manner in which Libya was treated by some countries in the developed world remains a scar that will take many years to heal for Africa,” Zuma said during a lecture.

“Developed countries with their own national agendas hijacked a genuine democratic protest by the people of Libya to further their regime change agendas.”

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Arab League’s Capitulation

http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=213696

Daily Star (Bangladesh)
December 12, 2011

Arab League’s capitulation!
Dr. M. Mahboob Hossain, Associate Professor, Microbiology Programme, BRAC University, Dhaka

Activities of the Arab League for the last few years hardly reflect the interests of the Arab people and the oppressed people of the whole world. It did not take any effective measure when millions of Iraqi civilians were killed by the US and its allies. It has not said a word against those who committed genocide in Iraq. Anyone can understand that the US and its allies attacked Libya and Iraq not to establish democracy and humans rights but to loot the oil resources of those countries.

The Arab League’s decision to suspend Syria’s membership, impose economic sanctions, and discuss transition-period arrangements with the opposition could pave the way to a military offensive by the Western powers in Syria, similar to what happened in Libya. If the US and its allies can give power to their puppet government in Syria with the help of Arab League, it will be easier for them to attack Iran.

If anybody carefully analyses the situation in Syria, he or she will understand that it is not Assad, rather the US and its allies are responsible for violence and death of civilians in Syria. Gaddafi hoped that if he did not kill the so-called rebels, NATO would help to settle the crisis through discussion, but ruthless NATO leaders did not give him any chance.

The sooner the Arabs understand that the Arab League leaders are not really helping them, the better.

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New Caucasus War: Azerbaijan Arms Spending Ratio Highest In CIS

http://armenianow.com/commentary/analysis/33855/azernaijan_increases_military_expences

ArmeniaNow
December 5, 2011

Buildup to No Good: Azerbaijan military spending ratio highest in CIS
By Aris Ghazinyan

-In the coming year Azerbaijan will allot 14.8 percent of its budget to military expenses, which exceeds Armenia’s “record-breaking” index of 2011 by two percent. This means that next year Azerbaijan’s military budget will be ten times that of Armenia’s.
-“[I]n 2008 the syndrome of self-confidence overwhelmed the Georgian president, too, who thought it was the time to declare war. It only took five days to restrain Saakashvili. And no matter how bitter the humiliation seemed to Georgia, it was also a good lesson first of all to Aliyev.”

Azerbaijan has spent $3.1 billion on its military needs in the outgoing year, and by this absolute index falls behind only Russia ($50.5 billion) among the former Soviet states.

But, while in Russia the percentage growth of military expenditures in 2011 made 3.02 percent of GDP, Azerbaijan has the highest indicator – 6.2 percent – in all the Commonwealth of Independent States.

In the Russia-lead list of top five post-Soviet countries, by the absolute index of military expenditures, the Ukraine ($1.1 billion) holds the third position, followed by Uzbekistan ($1.5 billion) and Kazakhstan ($1.2 billion).

Azerbaijan’s military budget for 2011 has exceeded Armenia’s total State Budget by $400 million. In doing so Azeri President Ilham Aliyev has kept the vow he made several years ago to not only equal Azerbaijan’s military expenses with the total budget of Armenia but to surpass it.

(In 2011 Armenia’s military budget made $387 million, which is eight times less than that of Azerbaijan.)

On November 1 the Armenian Parliament approved the increase of the republic’s defense budget up to almost $400 million, which is the highest index of annual expenses on the country’s military needs in all of its history.

Nonetheless, Armenia’s military budget will fall behind Azerbaijan even more in 2012, since Baku is planning to keep increasing its military expenses.

In the coming year Azerbaijan will allot 14.8 percent of its budget to military expenses, which exceeds Armenia’s “record-breaking” index of 2011 by two percent. This means that next year Azerbaijan’s military budget will be ten times that of Armenia’s.

Baku explains this need to increase its military expenses by the fact that the Karabakh issue is yet unresolved and tensions mount in the conflict zone.

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Russian analyst Vladimir Mukhin writes in this connection: “Taking into account all these factors it becomes obvious that there exists a feasible possibility of a new war in the South Caucasus. The outcome is unknown, what is clear is that in the event of active hostilities much will depend on Russia.”

Civilitas Foundation analyst Tatul Hakobyan says: “Should Armenians be concerned over the yearly growth and impressive figures of Azerbaijan’s military expenses? Absolutely. They should be concerned. The main concern stems from Aliyev’s and Azeris’ increasing conviction, most probably illusory, that they can declare a new war and win it.”

The analyst believes that Aliyev and the Azeri military elite are convincing themselves that the time has come to declare war. “However, in 2008 the syndrome of self-confidence overwhelmed the Georgian president, too, who thought it was the time to declare war. It only took five days to restrain Saakashvili. And no matter how bitter the humiliation seemed to Georgia, it was also a good lesson first of all to Aliyev.”

“A new war would also be the moment when Artsakh’s recognition becomes a must for Armenia,” says Hakobyan.

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Azerbaijan: U.S. Discusses Military Relations

http://en.apa.az/news.php?id=161547

Azeri Press Agency
December 12, 2011

US-Azerbaijan military and political relations and development prospects discussed in Baku

Baku: Azerbaijani Defense Minister, Colonel-General Safar Abiyev, received US Transportation Commander William Fraser.

The press service of the Defense Ministry told APA that the situation in the region, current state of US-Azerbaijan military and political relations and development prospects were discussed at the meeting.

Anti-terror operations and the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno Karabakh conflict were the meeting’s main themes for discussion.

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Pakistan: U.S. Challenged As NATO Surrounds Iran

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/ML13Df03.html

Asia Times
December 12, 2011

US outed, and far from drawn down
By M K Bhadrakumar

The United States-Pakistan relationship has reached a turning point reminiscent of the run-up to October 1958, when Washington encouraged General Ayub Khan’s coup, apprehending the coming into power of an elected government in Pakistan that might have refused to collaborate as the US’s Cold War ally against the Soviet Union.

An innocuous-looking thing happened on Sunday – Pakistan regained possession of the Shamsi air base in Balochistan near the border with Iran after evicting the US military presence from there. The base itself had been leased to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) since 1992.

The event is at once symbolic and tactical, while at the same time highly strategic even as war clouds are on the horizon over Iran. Symbolic in the sense that it is an assertion of Pakistan’s sovereignty; tactical because the US war strategy, which heavily depended on the drone attacks on North Waziristan, will now have to be reworked. Is the drone era in the Afghan war coming to a brusque end?

However, in all of this, what needs some careful analysis is why the US’s eviction from Shamsi holds strategic implications.

A mild stimulus

Washington initially viewed Islamabad’s decision to expel the US personnel and drone systems from Shamsi with disbelief as a knee-jerk reaction by the Pakistani generals upset over the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) air strike on the border post at Salala in the Mohmand Agency on November 26, which killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. Thus, Washington pressed its ally the UAE into a mediatory role.

UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zeyed al-Nahyan met President Asif Ali Zardari to seek revocation of the Pakistani decision or at least an extension of the 15-day deadline, but returned empty-handed. On getting the bad news from the sheikh, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton phoned Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, which was followed by a call a day later by President Barack Obama to Zardari.

Both Clinton and Obama drew a blank and thereafter the Pentagon reluctantly began the evacuation from Shamsi.

Clearly, the US underestimated the downstream consequences of the November 26 attack on Pakistan. Pakistani director general of military operations, Major General Ashfaq Nadeem told the federal cabinet and the parliament’s defense committee last week in a detailed briefing in Islamabad that the NATO attack bore the hallmark of a well-planned “plot” by the US and NATO command in Afghanistan.

If the likely US intention was to “engage” the Pakistani military leadership with a mild stimulus of “shock and awe”, it proved counter-productive. The civil-military leadership in Pakistan still continues to talk in the same voice. Gilani’s “ex-post facto” endorsement of army chief General Ashfaq Kiani’s decision to deploy the defense systems on the Afghan border to “detect any aircraft or helicopter and to shoot it down”, at their meeting in Islamabad on Saturday is the latest evidence of this.

But the crux of the matter is that the Obama administration has once again ceded policy to the Pentagon. With the Central Intelligence Agency also headed by an army general, David Petraeus, the Pentagon is pushing through a long-term military presence in Afghanistan although a political solution is Obama’s stated goal. The US military aims to step up the fighting. The “drawdown” strategy outlined by Obama last year is being conveniently reinterpreted for this purpose.

The US’s most recent statements have shed the strategic ambiguity over the “drawdown” and it is now crystal clear that tens of thousands of American combat troops are after all going to remain in Afghanistan beyond 2014 for an indeterminate future in addition to the trainers and advisers devoted to “capacity-building” of the Afghan armed forces.

The New York Times noted that Pentagon had been “quietly pushing” for this policy shift for some time. In essence, even as the negotiations over the US-Afghan strategic pact paving the way for the establishment of American military bases in Afghanistan have come to the final stage, the US is discarding the strategic ambiguity about the scope and nature of its long-term military presence.

Demand-driven partnership

This shouldn’t have come as a surprise. But Pakistan is facing a difficult situation. Contrary to Pakistan’s line of thinking that the military path is futile, the US is sticking to the “fight-talk” approach, which is to go on fighting while exploring the scope for opening talks with a militarily degraded Taliban from a position of strength.

Two, the US is not willing to concede a central role for Pakistan in the peace talks and is non-committal about Pakistan’s wish to have a “friendly” government in Kabul, because it seeks to choreograph a settlement that first and foremost would meet the needs of its regional strategies.

Three, paradoxical as it may seem, the continued fighting actually suits the US in the coming period, because it not only provides the justification for the long-term deployment of combat troops in Afghanistan despite regional (and Afghan) opposition but also gives the raison d’etre for the Northern Distribution Network (read US-NATO military presence in Central Asia), which Russia is showing signs of linking to the resolution of the dispute over the US’s missile defense system and the dissipation of the US-Russia “reset”.

Over and above all this, Obama’s decision to keep a large force of combat troops in Afghanistan needs to be viewed against the backdrop of the growing tensions in the US-Iran relations. In the eventuality of any conflict with Iran in a near future, this sort of massive military presence on Iran’s eastern flank would be a great strategic asset for the US and NATO.

Make no mistake, the US intends to use the military bases in Afghanistan as a springboard to invade eastern Iran if conflict erupts, no matter what President Hamid Karzai may think or say. By the way, Shamsi is also key air base close to the Iran border. Unsurprisingly, NATO is considering a “joint center” in the Persian Gulf region with the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. Thus, the US hopes to “box in” Iran militarily from the Persian Gulf on one side and Afghanistan on the other.

Indeed, NATO is fast transforming as a “smart alliance” based on a security partnership between the 28 members and the rest of the world, thanks to the military intervention in Libya. Ivo Daalder, the US ambassador to NATO, put it explicitly in a recent briefing:

“The Libya operation was a logical outflow of the view that we need to have partnerships with countries around the world…The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Jordan and Morocco not only supported the operation, but also participated in it … Lebanon was also a key in the operation, as it was president of the UN Security Council at that time and enacted the 1973 resolution…This is a demand-driven partnership. A demand by Arab countries.”

All in all, therefore, the “hidden agenda” of the Afghan war is out in the open. Pakistan finds itself between the devil and the deep blue sea. First of all, the Pakistani military distrusts the US’s intentions behind such large-scale intelligence penetration of its security apparatus in the recent years under the pretext of the “war on terror”, including the Inter-Services Intelligence and the military. In particular, the military leadership fears that the US harbors intentions of seizing Pakistan’s nuclear assets at an opportune moment.

Obama’s unprecedented decision to promote Petraeus as the Central Intelligence Agency head rang alarm bells in the Pakistani mind. Second, US interests and priorities in Afghanistan are increasingly in conflict with Pakistan’s. Third, Pakistan simply cannot afford to alienate China and Iran (or Russia for that matter). Finally, the US will sooner or later deploy its missile defense system in the region, which will threaten Pakistan’s strategic capability.

Shaking the albatross

The message of the US strike of November 26 was a test case intended to “soften up” the Pakistani military leadership and compel it to fall in line with the US’s strategy. Sheikh Nahyan tried to talk some good sense into the minds of the Pakistani generals. But the Shamsi episode underscores that the contradiction in US-Pakistan relations is far too acute to be reconciled easily or in a near term.

The point is, it is turning out to be contradiction of a fundamental character. The implications are serious. Pakistan is “obstructing” the US’s regional strategy. Put differently, Pakistan is a vital cog in the wheel of the US strategy.

Pakistan dissociated openly from the agenda of the recent Istanbul conference (November 2), which aimed at creating an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe-type regional security mechanism for Central and South Asia and launching the New Silk Road project aimed at rolling back Russian and Chinese influence in Central Asia. Pakistan also boycotted the Bonn conference (December 5) that was expected to legitimize the long-term US military presence in Afghanistan. To be sure, the two events floundered.

Washington is now left guessing whether Pakistan’s strategic defiance is for real. Its historical experience is that the Pakistani elites eventually buckle under American pressure. But the “strategic defiance” over Shamsi would come as a surprise. Meanwhile, by ceding Afghan policy to the Pentagon (and CIA), Obama has taken the precaution of minimizing the scope of this problem area causing controversy during his re-election bid next year. Petraeus is also well liked by the Republicans.

This is an “Ayub-Khan moment” in the US-Pakistan relationship. Once again, popular opinion in Pakistan threatens to intrude into the relationship. But then, there are key differences, too. Kiani is far from the jovial Sandhurst-trained general Ayub Khan was, who was fond of his drink and all good things in life and was used to obeying orders.

Besides, China is not only not the Soviet Union or an adversary of Pakistan, but is in reality its one and only “all-weather friend”. How can or why should Pakistan possibly collaborate with the US’s containment strategy toward China?

The most important difference between 1958 and 2011, however, is, firstly, that Kiani’s “nativist traditions” require him to act within the collegium of corps commanders who are acutely conscious of the mood within the armed forces, which is that Pakistan should shake off the albatross that was hung around its neck in late 2001.

Second, the Pakistani army is taking great and meticulous care that while traversing the shark-infested waters in the months ahead, it holds the hands of the country’s civilian leadership at every stage, every moment.

The challenge facing the US is to locate an Ayub Khan, but it is an improbable challenge.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

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After Libya War: Barefaced New Scramble For Africa, Middle Easy

http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/more.php?news_id=158811&date=2011-12-10

Financial Express (Bangladesh)
December 12, 2011

Barefaced scramble for Africa again
Nerun Yakub

Thinking sectors across the world watch with utter dismay the continuing scramble of the Euro-American consortium to reserve African resources for themselves, now that the spectacularly eccentric, authoritarian nationalist, Muammer Qaddafi of Libya, has been done in – in the most barefaced and barbaric manner – on October 20. As one observer noted last month, ‘NATO went to the war with the putative aim of upholding the Geneva Conventions – to prevent the massacre of civilians by a state…the war ended with the violation of those very conditions…’ (Vijay Anand, Frontline, 18 Nov 2011) It remains to be seen what the lessons from the next regime change operations of the Anglo-Saxon imperialists – ongoing in Syria – will be.

The North Atlantic and Gulf-Arab controlled media, including their illustrious leaders, greeted the gruesome and grisly desecration of the captured man with drunken glee. One need not be an unqualified admirer of the Libyan nation-builder to be revulsed at the dastardly machinations, media manipulations and gross violation of internationally recognised norms. The cell phone video of the obscene moment, that was immediately uploaded on the Internet, showed ‘…Qaddafi bloodied but alive – pushed around, thrown on to the bonnet of a car to be paraded…Qaddafi pleaded, ‘Don’t you know that what you are doing is wrong?…’

The baying rebels paid no heed and their ‘civilized’ Euro-American sponsors couldn’t care less. For to abide by Article 13 of the Geneva Conventions and stop the berserk anti-Qaddafi captors from doing what they did (they are said to have even sodomised him with the sharp end of their weapon) would have meant letting let him live to go through the ‘legal process of arrest, trial and judiciously decided punishment’ – as the office of the UN Special Rapporteur (on protecting human rights while countering terrorism), had advised, soon after the assassination of Osama bin Laden in May. That would have inconvenienced the aggressors. The next image was that of a bloodier Qaddafi, dead, with a bullet in the head, shot point blank.

Despite the fact that Qaddafi had become an ally of the West in the ‘War against Terror,’ hostilities inside Libya started being ochestrated, with covert elements from the US-NATO alliance operating on Libyan soil, many, many months before the actual rebellion erupted. And the backbone of the ‘pro-democracy’ elements was reportedly formed with al-Qaeda affiliates, the very same against whom the West’s ‘War on Terror’ game plan had been set up! And the pretext for the so-called humanitarian intervention itself was based entirely on a lie, courtesy Barack Obama. As early as February, the US President declared that if NATO had waited ‘one more day, Benghazi could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world.’ This was repeated over and over again on TV channels and in all the halls of power until Resolutions 1970 and 1973 were passed in the UN Security Council, invoking the dubious principle of the ‘responsibility to protect’.

According to media reports (not embedded in the NATO-US circuit), there was no credible evidence that a ‘massacre’ of a 100,000 was imminent in Benghazi. Nor were there any such massacres in the other rebellious areas under Qaddafi’s troops. Writes Aijaz Ahmed in Frontline, Nov 18, 2011, ‘On the contrary, there is incontrovertible evidence of massacres at the hands of NATO’s mercenaries. Neighbouring countries, such as Niger, Mali and Chad, have reported the eviction of some 300,000 black African residents from Libya as NATO’s local allies and clients rolled on towards Tripoli under the devastating shield of NATO’s own 40,000 plus bombings over large parts of Libya…there are also credible reports of lynchings and massacres of black Libyans themselves. The scale of these depredations is yet undetermined but it is already clear that upwards of 50,000 have died as a result of the war unleashed by NATO with the collusion of the Security Council, and half a million or more have been rendered homeless, mostly at the hands of NATO-armed ‘rebels’…’ (Libya recolonised)

The US-NATO combine is now set on employing the ‘Libyan model’ on other targets – that is, using deadly fire power from above, together with local proxy forces down below, with minimal cost to the NATO states themselves.

Bashar-al-Assad’s Syria is the immediate candidate. Here, as John Cherian of the same journal writes, ‘Washington is openly supporting the opposition, dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, in its ongoing efforts to topple the government. It has roped in its regional allies – Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Qatar – to keep funds and arms flowing to the Syrian opposition. The objective seems to be to stoke a civil war and then intervene with the tried-and-tested ploy of “humanitarian intervention” or the “right to protect (R2P) doctrine” concocted by the West.’

Armed adventures continue across Africa. There are more drone attacks in Somalia; special forces have been deployed in Uganda and the Kenyan armed forces have been given the green signal to go into Somalia. Analysts are sanguine that the US will soon get the new Libyan government to let them build a base within Libya to shift AFRICOM, the US Africa Command – at present in Germany’s Stuttgart – on to the African continent.

Anti-authoritarian activists need to pause and re-think. The repercussions of externally assisted ‘democracy and freedom’ can be lethal when the liberal human rights discourse gets co-opted and utilised to justify imperial interventionism in the affairs of sovereign states, robbing their resources and turning them into vassals.

Adrian Salbuchi, the Argentinian author, analyst and founder of the Argentine Second Republic Movement, makes plain the pattern that the US-NATO powers have been following in the past decades. ‘First they target a country by calling it a rogue state; then they support local terrorists and call them freedom fighters; then they bring death and destruction upon civilians and they call it UN sanctions. Then they spread lies and call it the International Community’s opinions, expressed in the Western media. Then they invade and control the country and call it liberation and finally they steal appetizing oil and call it foreign investment and reconstruction.’ (Russia Today, October 21, 2011)

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